Real Estate Tech News

Edward Lampert has filled in the blanks on his $4.4 billion rescue bid for Sears, but a couple of key numbers were still missing less than a day before a key court deadline: How much did the liquidators offer?Two bids from breakup firms have been submitted, and if either one tops Lampert, Sears Holdings Corp. could turn out to be worth more dead than alive for its creditors. Those numbers hadn't been publicly announced as of late Thursday.Lampert's ESL Investments is offering to keep the bankrupt chain in business and up to 50,000 people employed. But it's possible his plan won't be deemed solid enough to qualify, all but assuring that the company will be shut down and sold off in pieces. The deadline for Sears to tell bidders if they're still in the running is 4 p.m. New York time.

There’s no doubt about it: the 2018 housing market has seen its ups and downs.The year started with sky-high home prices, historically low mortgage rates and a definitive upper hand for sellers. In recent months though, home price growth has faltered, rates have risen to their highest point in nearly eight years, and favor has started to shift from seller to buyer.Will these trends continue? Will housing experience the same wild ride in the new year? Here’s what experts predict will happen in 2019 real estate market.

Autodesk’s construction software business is getting its second acquisition-fueled jolt of the past few weeks. The company announced on Thursday that it is acquiring startup BuildingConnected for $275 million.The acquisition of BuildingConnected comes exactly one month after Autodesk announced plans to acquire PlanGrid, another construction tech startup, for $875 million in November (the deal closed today). Together, the two acquisitions mean San Rafael, California-based Autodesk has paid $1.15 billion in a month for the startup companies.

There is a special circle of hell devoted to home renovation projects. It always seems like such a good idea at first. You flip through Dwell or Architectural Digest and think to yourself, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a trendy, marble-covered bathroom like the one in this photo?”Then, the nightmare begins: You search for contractors, but they each quote wildly different rates. You go to Home Depot to search for tiles and sink fixtures, but the ones you want are out of stock. The job is supposed to take a month, but it ends up taking three. Random strangers keep showing up at your house to do electrical and plumbing work. The stress of everything sends you and your partner to couples’ counseling. When it’s all said and done, you’ve gone over budget by $5,000. But at this point, you don’t care. You’re just grateful you don’t have to shower in an unfinished construction site

U.S. properties in places like Denver, Phoenix, Philadelphia, and the suburbs of Atlanta have all drawn foreign investment this year as buyers look for growth outside the biggest U.S. metro areas. Canadian investors topped the list of foreign buyers of U.S. real estate this year, as they have for a decade. Among those was Toronto-based Starlight Investments, which purchased apartment complexes in the suburbs of Atlanta and Phoenix through its U.S. fund “There were really only a handful of people when we first started looking at the suburbs,

For the first time in four years, the inventory of homes on the market actually grew in October—by 2% nationally, compared with the same time last year. In the fiercely competitive world of U.S. real estate—where a lack of available homes has led to price jumps, bidding wars, and frustrated buyers—this is significant news. Is it a harbinger of changes to come?
While the net increase of 25,000 listings was no avalanche, it marked a sharp change from the severe constriction in supply that has marked recent years and driven up prices. In addition, new listings in October came in at cheaper price points.

Walmart is planning to develop the land surrounding a number of store sites nationwide into town centers, or what it calls "reimagined centers." The town centers will be located on land around Walmart supercenters that the retail giant considers underutilized.
The concept is flexible and will include the addition of restaurants, health clinics, day care establishments, gas stations, bowling alleys, food trucks, bike rental stations, and driving ranges.

Nine cities have won the Bloomberg Philanthropies U.S. Mayors Challenge, which comes with $1 million for each jurisdiction to put toward implementing solutions to civic issues they face.
The awards come after a year-long competition, during which city leaders proposed, tested and developed projects capable of solving local problems — projects that also have the potential to be scaled for national use. The $1 million is specifically intended to be used to begin implementation of the winning projects, which address a pretty wide range of challenges, including homelessness, climate change, the opioid crisis and more.

Housing-market headwinds are keeping American homeowners in their properties for the longest stretches on record, in a sharp distortion of the mobility Americans have for decades prized.
Across the country, homes that sold in the third quarter of this year had been owned an average of 8.23 years, according to an analysis from Attom Data Solutions. That’s almost double the length of time a home sold in 2000, when Attom’s data begin, had been owned.

U.S. pending home sales edged up 0.5% to a reading of 104.6 in September from 104.1 in August, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. The consensus forecast among economists surveyed by Econoday was for no change.
What happened: NAR’s index, which tracks real estate contract signings, snapped a four-month losing streak. But it was lower than year-ago levels for the ninth month in a row, this time by 1.0%.